We are often told to pay attention to what our mothers tell ________. Most of us enjoy listening to our mothers speak. Scientists have found that compared with other people’s voices, our ________ greatly prefer the voices of our own mothers.

Scientists from Stanford University, US, scanned(扫描) children’s brains while they were ________ to different sounds, including their mothers’ voices. They found that 97% of the time, children could recognize(认出) their mothers’ voices at once.

Hearing their mothers’ voices makes children’s brains more ________. We usually just use one part of our brain to ________ sounds when we hear something. But when we hear our mothers’ voices, many parts of the brain start to work as well.

________ do we react(反应) so strongly to our mothers’ voices? It starts even before we’re born. When children are still in the womb(子宫) or have just been born, they hear their mothers talking. This makes babies feel ________ and teaches them language and social skills, even though they are still very young. The babies learn to recognize their mothers’ voices as a rewarding ________. Later, when this sound is heard again, more attention is paid ________ it.

Some sounds are necessary for our life or bring us pleasure. These sounds are recognized by our brains as valuable sounds. Most human voices are not recognized in this way, since we hear them so often. ________ mothers’ voices are different. They bring us a lot of comfort.

Once in a village lived a wealthy man who had a clever son with curly golden hair. However, the man was very worried about his son, Peter. The man tried every way to make his son understand and leave bad habits, but it was too hard to do that.

One day, the man got to know that John, a famous teacher, had come to their village.

The man went to John and asked him to help his son to give up his bad habits.

John agreed and asked him to bring his son.

The next morning the man came to John with his son. John took the young man with him for a walk through the garden.

While walking, John stopped suddenly and pointed toward a tiny orchid(兰花) growing there and said to Peter, “Pull it out…”

Peter held the plant between his thumb(拇指) and forefinger and pulled it out.

After this, John continued to walk with the young man. After walking for a while, he stopped again and pointed toward a little bigger plant and said, “Pull it out…”

Peter held that plant and pulled hard and it came out with its roots(根) and all.

“Now, pull that one…” said John, pointing toward a bush.

Peter used all his strength to pull that out.

“Now pull this one out…” said John, pointing toward a big guava(番石榴) tree.

Peter held the trunk of the tree and tried to pull it out but it wouldn’t move.

“It’s impossible,” said the young man, breathing heavily.

John smiled and said, “So it is with bad habits. When they are young, it is easy to pull them out, but when they are strong, they can’t be pulled out. Don’t wait for bad habits to grow in you!”

John’s words changed the young man’s life forever.

“World record broken!” On Aug 12, 17-year-old Ma Jiajun from Jilin excitedly posted this on social media, with a picture of him holding the certificate（证书）from Guinness World Records. He has set a new world record for “the most consecutive jump rope triples（连续三摇跳绳）” with 701 times. The last world record was 423, set by a Japanese person, 35 years ago.

Ma is more than 180cm tall, but he used to be short and thin in primary school. To build a stronger body, he joined the school’s jump rope team. At 9, he competed in a national game and surprisingly broke a record. “My coach said I have a talent in this sport and suggested that I should keep doing it,” said Ma. So he joined a jump rope club and kept training for six years.

“The training was really hard. I needed to practice every day for at least four to five hours,” Ma said. “The jump rope triple has a high requirement for core strength（核心力量）. Every night when I lay on my bed, my abs（腹肌）and back were in pain.”

But a strong wish to break the record kept him going. “My favorite TV show is Guinness China Night（《吉尼斯中国之夜》）. I always dreamed of getting a certificate of my own,” he said. “That would prove my efforts and persistence.”

After breaking the record, Ma won lots of attention from the public. “I hope more people could enjoy jump rope, since it’s good for your health and full of fun,” Ma said. Now he is preparing for next year’s gaokao, with Beijing Sport University being his next goal.